Study: Over 90% of Great Barrier Reef suffering from coral bleaching
(CNN)A study measuring the extent of coral bleaching in Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef is branding some of the northern reef's problem as "extreme."
As much as 93% of the 2,300 km (1,429 miles) reef suffers from some level of bleaching, according to the report from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. Bleaching occurs when algae that live inside corals and give them their color are expelled -- either due to increased sea temperatures or extreme weather events.
"The bleaching is extreme in the 1,000 km (600 mile) region north of Port Douglas all the way up to the northern Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea," says Andrew Baird of the ARC Centre.
"At some reefs, the final death toll is likely to exceed 90%. When bleaching is this severe, it affects almost all coral species, including old, slow-growing corals that once lost will take decades or longer to return."
But coral bleaching is also "the most widespread and conspicuous impact of climate change," according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Events like this one in the Great Barrier Reef are effects of climate change that scientists have predicted and feared.
Coral reefs are important to ocean ecosystems and continued bleaching events from ocean warming and acidification will damage reef-based fisheries and increase exposure to coastlines from waves and storms. It also will damage economies that depend on ecotourism, such as those in Australia and the Caribbean.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/asia/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching/index.html
(CNN)A study measuring the extent of coral bleaching in Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef is branding some of the northern reef's problem as "extreme."
As much as 93% of the 2,300 km (1,429 miles) reef suffers from some level of bleaching, according to the report from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. Bleaching occurs when algae that live inside corals and give them their color are expelled -- either due to increased sea temperatures or extreme weather events.
"The bleaching is extreme in the 1,000 km (600 mile) region north of Port Douglas all the way up to the northern Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea," says Andrew Baird of the ARC Centre.
"At some reefs, the final death toll is likely to exceed 90%. When bleaching is this severe, it affects almost all coral species, including old, slow-growing corals that once lost will take decades or longer to return."
"At some reefs, the final death toll is likely to exceed 90%. When bleaching is this severe, it affects almost all coral species, including old, slow-growing corals that once lost will take decades or longer to return."
But coral bleaching is also "the most widespread and conspicuous impact of climate change," according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Events like this one in the Great Barrier Reef are effects of climate change that scientists have predicted and feared.
Coral reefs are important to ocean ecosystems and continued bleaching events from ocean warming and acidification will damage reef-based fisheries and increase exposure to coastlines from waves and storms. It also will damage economies that depend on ecotourism, such as those in Australia and the Caribbean.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/asia/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching/index.html
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